DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD: IMPACT ON OPERATIONS

Despite the long-standing debate about the ultimate purpose of a firm in society, management researchers primarily emphasize the neoclassical, economic view within their research. There have been many calls for a shift away from this focus, toward a more balanced stakeholder view. Ideally, in this view, the purpose of the firm is to balance and maximize the economic, social, environmental, and cultural well-being of key internal and external stakeholders. The general management literature, with its focus on organizational strategy, responded to these calls by developing theories in areas such as corporate social responsibility and business ethics. However, the operations management (OM) literature remains a-theoretical, with a primary focus on applications and mathematical modeling for maximizing the efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability of the organization. Despite very preliminary investigations into individual dimensions of well-being, little OM research considers how existing operations models and daily decisions (in the areas of goods and service design, quality, process and capacity design, location, layout, human resources and job design, supply chain management, inventory, scheduling, and maintenance) would change if the purpose of a firm was viewed through the stakeholder lens. This conceptual paper begins to develop and articulate the concept of ‘managing operations for sustainable well-being’